Rhodes Scholarships

No discussion about present trends and developmental possibilities in South Africa can begin without considering the legacy of the immediate and the remoter past. I am convinced also that we should speak candidly and unflinchingly about the trauma and the negative effects of colonialism, slavery, capitalist-imperialism, segregation and apartheid on the physical, psychological and socio-cultural conditioning of the oppressed people. 1

Buck, Christopher. “Alain Locke and Cultural Pluralism.” Search for Values: Ethics in Baha’i Thought. Edited by Seena Fazel and John Danesh. Los Angeles: Kalimat Press, 2004. Pp. 94–158.

African American philosopher Alain Locke is arguably the most profound and important Western Bahá’í philosopher to date. Except for one 1979 article in a Bahá’í periodical, scholarship on Locke has neither seriously taken into account his Bahá’í identity nor the Faith’s influence on his work. The present study, based largely on archival sources, contributes to research on this “missing” dimension of Locke’s complex life and thought. It examines Locke’s worldview as a Bahá’í, his secular perspective as a philosopher, and the synergy between his confessional and professional essays. This study also argues that Locke had a fluid hierarchy of values—of loyalty, tolerance, reciprocity, cultural relativism and pluralism (the philosophical equivalent of “unity in diversity”)—and that this hierarchy represents a progression and application of quintessentially Bahá’í ideals. Locke’s distinction as a “Bahá’í philosopher” may therefore be justified on ideological as well as historical grounds. Locke “translated” Bahá’í ideals “into more secular terms” so that “a greater practical range will be opened up for the application and final vindication of the Bahá’í principles” in order to achieve “a positive multiplication of spiritual power.”

Buck, Christopher. “The Baha’i ‘Race Amity’ Movement and the Black Intelligentsia in Jim Crow America: Alain Locke and Robert S. Abbott.” Baha’i Studies Review 17 (2011): 3–46. [Published September 2012.]

EPIGRAPH:

I attended every session, day and night ... Many times throughout the meetings did with much effort restrain my tears. My heart leaped and throbbed and many times almost burst within my breast. I am a colored man ... My race as a whole, I believe, is quite ready to welcome the glad day when all will be brothers. ... The trouble is nearly unilateral. God give us the day.

— M. F. Harris, audience member at the ‘Convention for Amity Between the Colored and White Races Based on Heavenly Teachings’ (19–21 May 1921)

ABSTRACT:

This study demonstrates how the Baha’i ‘Race Amity’ efforts effectively reached the black intelligentsia during the Jim Crow era, attracting the interest and involvement of two influential giants of the period — Alain Leroy Locke, PhD (1885–1954) and Robert S. Abbott, LLB (1870–1940). Locke affiliated with the Baha’i Faith in 1918, and Abbott formally joined the Baha’i religion in 1934.

Another towering figure in the black intelligentsia, W. E. B. Du Bois (1868–1963) – whose first wife, Nina Du Bois (d. 1950), was a member of the New York Baha’i community — had sustained, for a period of time, considerable interest in the Baha’i movement, as documented in a forthcoming special issue of the Journal of Religious History, guest edited by Todd Lawson. These illustrious figures — W. E. B. Du Bois, Alain L. Locke and Robert S. Abbott — are ranked as the 4th, 36th and 41st most influential African Americans in American history. It is not so much the intrinsic message of the Baha’i religion that attracted the interest of the black intelligentsia, but rather the Baha’i emphasis on ‘race amity’ — representing what, by Jim Crow standards, may be regarded as a socially audacious, even radical — application of the Baha’i ethic of world unity, from family relations to international relations, to the prevailing American social crisis.

EXCERPT:

On February 1, 2012, Cornel West, Professor of African American Studies and Religion, Princeton University, paid tribute to the historic Baha’i efforts to foster ideal race relations in America:

“When you talk about race and the legacy of white supremacy, there’s no doubt that when the history is written, the true history is written, the history of this country, the Baha’i Faith will be one of the leaven in the American loaf that allowed the democratic loaf to expand because of the anti-racist witness of those of Baha’i faith.”

[“Towards Oneness - Cornel West” (1 February 2012). Online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbEDC8wAWiI [updated link, accessed May 17, 2018.]

If and when, as suggested by Cornel West, a revisionist history of the Jim Crow era is written, the contribution of the Baha’i ‘race amity’ initiatives — envisioned and mandated by ‘Abdu’l-Bahá himself — should take its rightful place in the annals of American history.

Christopher Buck, “Alain Locke: Baha’i Philosopher.” Baha’i Studies Review 10 (2001/2002): 7–49. 

ABSTRACT

African American philosopher Alain Locke is arguably the most profound and important western Bahá’í philosopher to date. Except for Ernest Mason’s 1979 World Order article, scholarship on Locke has neither seriously taken into account his Bahá’í identity nor its influence on his work. The present study, based largely on archival sources, will contribute to research on this “missing” dimension of Locke’s complex life and thought. This study examines Locke’s worldview as a Bahá’í, his secular perspective as a philosopher, and the synergy between his confessional and professional essays. This study also argues that Locke had a fluid hierarchy of values—of loyalty, tolerance, reciprocity, cultural relativism and pluralism (the philosophical equivalent of “unity in diversity”)—and that this hierarchy represents a progression and application of quintessentially Bahá’í ideals. Locke’s distinction as a “Bahá’í philosopher” may therefore be justified on ideological as well as historical grounds. Locke “translated” Bahá’í ideals “into more secular terms” so that “a greater practical range will be opened up for the application and final vindication of the Bahá’í principles” in order to achieve “a positive multiplication of spiritual power.”

Christopher Buck, “Alain Locke.” The American Mosaic: The African American Experience, ABC-CLIO. Edited by Marian Perales, Spencer R. Crew, and Joe E. Watkins. (Online database.) https://africanamerican.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1477693. [Entry ID: 1477693, as of Feb. 19, 2023.]

Ibegan working with Tyler Fisher, who has since become UCF's first Rhodes Scholar, in my first year of teaching at UCF. He took two of my honors composition classes and did an independent study with me. In addition, he and I co-wrote a research grant (which was awarded), presented papers at a national conference, and co-authored an article for publica- tion in a national journal. For a research project called Earth Echoes, which studies a location-based audio medium, Tyler did historical research at libraries and museums, qualitative and quantitative analysis, interviews and case studies, and interface design and testing.

Frank Aydelotte, second Director of the Institute for Advanced Study, a position he held from October 1939 to October 1947. A founding trustee of the Institute, he had anticipated that at some point he would take over this position from the founding Director, Abraham Flexner. Aydelotte's time as Director bore little resemblance to the relatively tranquil pre-retirement stint he had first anticipated, but it was, for that very reason perhaps, even more valuable to the Institute. "The Institute would not be here today if Frank Aydelotte had not organized it," said one eminent IAS professor in the late 1960s. The reverse of a prima donna, Aydelotte brought stability and ultimately growth to the Institute when its future was still decidedly precarious. He preserved and consolidated the vision and accomplishments of the prickly Abraham Flexner, and provided the basic resources and foundations that would underpin the Institute's expansion during the nineteen-year tenure of the longest-serving Director to date, Robert Oppenheimer. In the seventy years since he retired, the second Director's successors have brought to fruition some of his long-contemplated but repeatedly deferred plans. But his greatest legacy is that the Institute he served with quiet and nonspectacular dedication is still here.

When Cecil Rhodes bequeathed his scholarships to Oxford university in the early 20th century,
women and minorities did not figure in his plan. So this week’s launch of a global Rhodes
scholarship, open to students from anywhere in the world, is as welcome as was last month’s appointment of the first female warden of Rhodes House, which administers the programme. Both announcements have been more than a century in the making.

Can the Rhodes Scholarship "Stand Up For the World," as it proclaims, including for women, when the Rhodes Trust accepts a partnership with the philanthropic arm of former Google executive Eric Schmidt, who has a dubious track record on tolerating sexual harassment?